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HADES, 



THE PROGRESS OF MIND. 



HADES; 



OR, 



THE TRANSIT: 



THE PROGRESS OF MIND. 



TWO POEMS. 



BY 

W. B. SCOTT. 






ff . 0&-C6*~J[ 



LONDON: 
TBLISHED BY HENRY RENSHAW, 356, STRAND. 



MDCCCXXXYIII 






*<!& 

?m^ 



By Transfer 

D. C Public libr*.j 

feb a a 1933 



168300 



i wisiebbm Jfi0 « suauo Llauay 



TO HIS BROTHER, 

DAVID SCOTT, 

AS A FRATERNAL TESTIMONIAL (THOUGH A SMALL ONE) 
OF HIS GREAT LOVE AND ESTEEM, 

W. B. SCOTT 

INSCRIBES THESE VERSES. 



PREFACE. 



It was the intention of the author when he proposed 
printing the following verses, merely to gratify him- 
self by a private circulation. He proposed doing so, 
not so much from a consideration of the anti-poe- 
tical character of the times, which has been so much 
insisted on, as from a consciousness that the nature of 
the poetry prevented it having a general interest. 
The poetic feeling is, perhaps, always equal, though 
the revolution of opinion may modify its exhibition, 
and the art of poetry may vary as a matter of literary 
interest or encouragement. The present poem, 
however, both from its subject and its execution, 
addresses itself to those of a peculiar idiosyncrasy, and 
therefore could not expect popular attention, whether 
the age were (artistically speaking) poetical or other- 
wise. The opinion of a friend caused the author to 



change his determination, and to submit his book 
(small as it is) to a wider tribunal. 

The idea on which the poem rests, was suggested 
by reading, in Mr. Bellamy's learned translation 
of the Bible, from the Hebrew, the passage describing 
Jubal and Tubal-cain. These patriarchs, by some 
experimentum cruets of the brain, became changed from 
instructors of the early world unto Intelligences in 
Hades, through whose instrumentality the dead were 
re-fashioned for the future. 

The state in which Homer describes the dead, viz., 
in languishing pain, possessing desires which they 
cannot gratify, is that which in all ages has been 
naturally and popularly attributed to them. Like 
Orion, a shadow, the hunter of a shade, each one 
pursues his old passions. They are passive impersona- 
tions of memory — shades, not beings. The living 
principle passed on to higher energies, and still its 
spectral representative remained in Hades. Ulysses' 
visit to hell in the XI. Od. may be recollected. 



9 

Where Hercules is introduced, we are told that while 
the <ppv)v, or living spirit of the hero, is with the gods 
his s&oo\ov converses with Ulysses. 

As to the moral, or rather the philosophy of the 
verses, that must be left to the reader. It must be 
left to his pleasure, or his cast of intellect, to con- 
sider them either as a piece of vagrant fancy, or as 
the work of the higher faculty of imagination dealings 
"through symbol, with things occult." 




9 



HADES 



THE TRANSIT. 



The great Tree of Life with its lustrous flowers, 
Sprang from the nurture of Death's black showers. 
From the dead worm the insect grew ; 
For still decay creates anew ; 
And the great Spirit changeth none, 
While Death, the formless god, alone 
Ministers beneath his throne ; 
Charming the vot'ries with songs divine, 
And hushing the victims beside the shrine, 
At once, as the sun from our purple skies 
Sinks dim, while its impearling shine 
On other lands and homes doth rise. 



12 

Thus the world, from death to death, 
Goeth on breathing its youthful breath, 
And attaining a good more firm and high, 
As the fall of the leaves doth rear 
The palm-tree's feathered crown (where lie 
The milky fruits in the sun) each year, 
And carves on its stem its history. 



The angel of death through the dry earth slid 

Like a mole, to the dervish Yan, 

Who lay beneath the turf six feet 
Tn the house of the dead ; and he smote the lid 
With his hammer that shakes the dead Musleman, 

And whispered thus through board and sheet : 

" Arise ! that thy closed eye and ear 

" May see the things that Are, and hear 

" The melody that can recreate, 

" And bind again the link of fate." 

The dervise turned in his grave, and rose 
On his knees at the sound of the three dread blows. 

He was a living man again ; 

Yet he felt no earth, nor of it thought, 

But arose without a strain. 

I ween he marvelled much that nought 
Save these words he heard, for the Koran ran 
In his memory with the fear of its ban, 

And the judgment by angels twain. 



13 

Friends wept aloud for the dervise Yan, 
And they also wept for a Christian, 
Whom a muffled procession of late had laid 
Beneath the sward in the cool green shade 
Of a sanctified wall, whose stones di vide 
The earth where heretic corse s hide, 

From that setjapart jbr the fait hfol alone. 

They wept as they placed there a fair tombstone ; 
But the dead man laughed as he woke below, 
For he rejoiced at waking so ; 
He laughed aloud as he thrust abroad 
His hands, like one who prayed to God. — 
"lam awake ! awake and well ; 
" And not as craven faiths forebode, 
" Like foolish prophets lying, 
" That I should swim through an endless hell, 
" With maniac doubters' dying. 
" But where is the light, and the earth, and air, 
" And myself, my living spirit — where ?" 

The angel of death, stooping, clasped his hand, 
And silenced him, whispering, " I command 
" The lyre whose voice wilt answer thee 
" With God's high truths unchangeably." 

Beneath the head, 
When the Jew is dead 

B 



14 

Is a clod of quick earth kneaden j 
And as the mourners backward go, 
Three grassy turfs to the grave they throw, 
Saying : "Thou shalt like the green grass grow, 
May thy soul be buried in Eden ." 
Thus in the Levites' vault was laid 
A Rabbi ; and thus were the honors paid, 
At that time when the dark angel of death 
Gave the two Gentile corses breath. 
And with a difficult writhe, his eyes 
The Rabbi opening, tried to rise. 
" Have the demons power o'er me," he cries ; 
" A Sadducee who believed it not ?" 
l And he sank back again and ceased to be, 
' Like a dreamer whose night-mare is forgot, 
Relapsing in deep sleep heavily : 
Or like an adamantine thing 
That may withstand decay's white wing. 
But the eagle sleeps as sound as he, 
Though its eye is alit by the dawn, and, lo ! 
The angel of death roused him also, 
And he slid with slow and painful toil 
From the flesh which is the earth-worm's spoil, 
Trembling to hear the words, " Follow thou too 
Within the strong sphere of the melody 
Whose voice once woken may not die." 



15 

And thus have these three mortals passed 
From the grave to the hollow and boundless vast 
Which ever must beyond us lie — 
The starless heaven— f uturity^ 
And as they fled each seemed to say, 

Now are we alike astray ; 
The faith and pride and power of earth 

Are for dying or for birth, 
Which we can know no more who go 
Hand in hand to the dusk below. 



CHRISTIAN. 

Down the slope of death we tread, 
Awakened again as at birth, the dead 
Our mother is and our nursing bed. 

Down the steep from hearth and home, 

From the merry man's jest, from pen, from tome, 

From the summer's sun and the starry dome. 

Down the steep from the labour vain, 
From power, from knowledge, or from gain, 
In samp, court, cloister, mountain, plain. 



16 



JEW. 

Down the steep from scorn's chill hail, 
From Gentiles vile, from pride's pink sail, 
From the worm and asp, from hiss and waiL 



MOSLEM, 

Down the steep from Muezzim's coil, 
From the dates and flask, and caftan'd moil, 
From the camel and tentpoles, sweltering soiL 



ALL. 



Down the slope of death go we, 
Changed and changing, still to be 
Changed throughout eternity. 



Whose huge arm is around us now r 
To whose embraces mustjwe^bow ?■ 
Whither away so soft and slow ? 
Answer, answer from below ! 



17 

Down from life — sheer down — but where ? 
Sinks in the dark this pathless way : 
It is not on earth nor in the air. 
We die, yet live. — Oh, whither away, 
Phantoms of a summer's day, 
Are ye gone ? Come back again ! 
Revive us as a summer's rain. — 
And, mother, still thou'lt have thy child 
To cling to thee with frolic wild : 

Am I not thy little boy, 
And how can I be changed ? Whatjoy^ 
D escends fr ^m^hyjargg^ejes so mild, 
Large unto thy pigmyjchild, 

Tis gone ! Thou vision, come again. 

We thirst as spring- tide thirsts for rain. 

The trumpet cannot call the dead, 

And yet I hear it overhead — 

A soldier's sleep is thick and brief; 

Half in watching, half in fear; 

Thank their God the Franks are near, 

And the dawn will give us all relief; 

'Tis hard to fight on dates alone, 

And yet — but again — 'tis gone, 'tis gone; 

And softly bending, fairest, dearest, 

Thou with moonlike light appearest! 



18 

Thou, mine own; ah, smile as when 

First I saw thee by the hearth; 
Lady- girl, oh, smile as then, 

That I, thy boy, be weaned from mirth. 

• Dream of a shade ! 'tis the past doth cry 

In the throes of ashriyelling memo ry. 

- But, brother spirits, who have come 

From yourselves, through a wonderous trance, 

Yet living do remain, what home, 

What place of rest or permanence 

Draws us onward ; or can ye tell 

Rise we or sink we, to heaven or hell ?— 
Methought even now my beloved lady's eyes 

I beheld in placid light arise ; 

Methought my guileless mother smiled 

Over her un weaned child. 

But what strange forms are those below, 
That to and fro 

Pass as if they walked, and then 

Pass in the self- same form again ? 

Alike they are even every one — 

Yet bearing a resemblance dim v 

To the sons of Adam beneath the sun. 

They press upon us, Elohim ! 

Underneath our feet they move, 

And they stalk our heads above; 



19 

(YeajJh§YJ>assJhi^ugh. us^quite^though 
Shadows with likej hadows ble nt ; 
Shadows from some genii sent, 
Whom we their shadows cannot know. 

I see, I see 
A hurtle of mountain tops dizzily, 
And a large-limbed beast, with a spiring horn, 
O'er an abyss of waste forlorn 
Rushing before a swift spectre's hand ; 
And other hunting spectres follow 
Without bay and without hollo, 
Through hoar forests, and over sand 
Without a sea, an endless strand 
Behind us stretches. — Jesus ! we — ■ 
We are the prey so ruthlessly 
Pursued with fang and spear ! 

A wind 
Severs the vision of mountain and flood. 
And whirls them together ; the pillared wood 
And its cavernous multitude 

Of dark recesses blind. 
Fragments of this unfashioned world 
Around our baseless feet are hurled. 
And phantoms, without number, vast, 
Interlace the maddening dream, 
Hustling together, are never past. 



20 

And whence this leprous light, no gleam 
Of star it is nor white moonbeam ; 

Like the shine from the sightless eyes of death, 
Like winter's pestal breath ; 
It steams from the gulf of mist beneath, 

It follows each phantom athwart like a stream 
Closing behind with a foamy wreath. 

Away, away, through cloud and spray 

They rush with tossing hand and brow, 
Maenads or bacchanals, they prance 
Madly, or writhe in the tortuous dance, 
Innumerably intertwined : 

They congregate still, they fade, they grow : 

And wingless from above descending 
Prone they come, nor is the hair 
On their rigid shoulders pending 
Stirred by any passing air, 
As they outstrip the fleet north wind. 
They meet, they swoop together — afar, 
As if around a central war ; 
And now in circles whirl, and we 
Alone cleave the whirlpool steadily. 
Some their unlighted torches raise 
Watching with a sightless gaze. 
Now they cease, and now uncoil, — 
Blackness now suspends their toil; 



21 

And now it breaks, and, lo ! 
Walls and towers around us grow, 
With spires and pillared walks and domes- 
An infinite wilderness of home s : 
And through this web of night and day 

Over every paven way 
Saunter men most strange to see : 
Tiger's stripes about them flow, 
Their limbs in brazen sandals laced, 
And the winged sphere and the scarabee 
On every capital is chased. 
'Tis changed — and still a waste of street 
Fills the abyss beneath our feet, 
With awful porch and ample stair, 
Where men with dark and flowing hair 
Follow the hoary ; helm and plume 
The brows of other forms illume, 

And gods are seated there. 
But it hath changed again — the gloom 
Hath risen. Joy ! is this our town ? 
With its busy lanes of artizans, 
And all its windings up and down, 
Its women and its gadding clans, 
Its hammermen and taverners too, 
And its market's chaffering crew ? 



22 

Alas, it is not, — Would that I 
Were again beneath the breezy sky, 
To go, as we were wont, once more 
By quiet path or beating shore. 
Oh, God, if yet thou hear'st our wail, 

For an hour again 

Let us be men, 
Or now cease utterly and fail 
To live in the throes of memory. 



Hath our prayer been heard ? Ah, no ; 
Spectres that have never trod 
The earth with man, nor heaven with God, 

Rise stark and slow ; 
And some with rings of gold 
Amid their corded locks, and brands 
And mystic symbols of dead creeds 

Are in their hands : 
And many in red garments hold 
By the nostrils fiery steeds. 
Lightning quivers from their hands v 
As their tempest-bulk expands, 
And their horrent eyes more wide 
Become ; with a tremendous stride 



23 

They meet — they cling together— now 

The furies of battle are over all ; 

They ascend in pain, they fall 

Sheer through the seething gulf below. 

God of Mahomed ! and are we 

In this living death- strife free ? 

Oh ! that we could dissolve at once 

To nothingness : — advance, 
Ye barbed toilers ! smoke and fire ! 
Strangle us that we may expire 
To all this madness. What are these, 
That with a solemn, a regal prance 
Approach in purple to the knees ? 
And eastern beasts before them go 
Laden with the bones of many a foe ; 
Myriads of shadows about them raise 
Their hands exuberant of praise. 
Before the elephants is strewn 
A milky-way of flowers new blown — 

Oh, childlike flowers, 

From what mild bowers 
Come ye, bereft, like Proserpine, 
Of the dews and airs that once were thine ! 
Away the vision is hurried again, 

A priestly train 
Bears along the Christian sign. 



24 

MOSLEM. 

Avaunt ! if ye avoid the ban 

Of a cleansed and hallowed Musleman. 

CHRISTIAN. 

Silence, brethren ! that I may 
For our fearful wanderings pray. 

JEW. 

Brother ! not with them, I'm one 

Of the remnant of Israel, Abraham's son. 

Would that we could cease to be, 

Nor writhe in the throes of memory — 

But 'tis past, His past, and a soothing peace 

Steals lightly down for our release : 

Like an exhausted melody 

Wanderingly we lapse away. 

Now, good brethren, listen ye 

To the voices of damsels fair and free ! 

Have we never died ? Is all 

This boiling gulf of things unknowns 

Nought but a bedrid madness grown 

From a fevered heart, a withered brain ? 

Shall we tear the horrent pall 

And awake from death again ? — 



25 

They come not ! nor doth any voice 
Approach to wail or to rejoice. 
Oh, that this death- closed ear 
Were freed from dust that it still might hear 
Those spectres who shout with a visible noise, 
As this wildering maze they thread — 
And now a roof expands o'erhead, 

A chamber wide, 
With lazars writhing on every side- 
Now with a hurricane it is swept— 

Or have they crept, 
Like worms, beneath the walls so fair, 
Clad with couch and curtains rare, 
And ivory pendants here and there, 
And un wrought gold on cedarn beams, 
Where the timbrel hangs and the cestus gleams, 

And peri- sleepers hide : 

Whither, whither do we fall 
Fainting, gasping ; do we swim 
Through a moonless wrack, a cloud world dim, 
An endless moil, where the God of all 
Is not and cannot hear our prayer. 
Oh, that the dead he yet might spare, 
That we might utterly cease to be, 
Nor live in the throes of memory. 



26 

Thus the travellers from the grave 
Wailed as they wandered. Who can say 
What likeness beseems the wond'rous way 
Within the silent door of death ; 
Or what Almighty secrets pave 
The path to New life, when the breath 
And sense have ceased to be, as now, 
The guardians of our souls ? The plough 
Furrows bones where warriors trod 
Belted, and plumed, and iron-shod, 

Filled with glory or disdain 

Of the peaceful or the slain. 
The shreds that the plough may stir, I deem, 
Little like the warriors seem. 



Two lights, two sphered lights appear, 
Two lights, like the moon at the fall of the year, 
When the evening sky is mantled o'er 
With a hazy fleece, and of all the store 
Of stars not one can penetrate 
The cloudy woof till the night be late. 
Two haloes slowly and steadily 
Met them, like a nether day, 
A nd increasing in beauty still more and more ; 



27 

Behoid, they are the tiaras of light 
Upon the heads of gods ; a sound— 
A blessed swoon of music, wound 
From those two haloes, passed around 
The wanderers with resistless might. 
And say, 
Whose tongues be they 
That own such potent alchemy, 
Such subtilty divine ? 
Upon whose crown 
Hath a light come down, 
Holy Spirit ! like to thine ? 

(The wanderers beneath that melody 
Slept with delicious joy away. 
And what was the song 
That bore along 
These spirits with a power so strong ? 
1 "Would I could repeat the lay 
In the light of upper day ; 
And unwreath both warp and woof 
Of this web of conscious life, 
And tear all sensuous thoughts aloof, 
And all entanglement of strife ; 
Then weave it again with the amaranth flower, 
And die it with nepenthe bloom, 
That man might know not sorrow's hour, 
Nor fear the gods beyond the tomb ! 



28 



But what was the song 

That bore along 
Those spirits with a power so strong ? 
Would I could repeat the lay 
In the mole-eyed light of day : 
And charm the heart to hope no more, 
But to flow like a wine- cup mantling o'er % 
And wean the soul from the thirst to know 
By the fullness of self-knowledge. — Oh, 
That the weary might unbind his hand, 
And the dweller in the northern land 
Cast the seal-skin from his" limb. 
And softly sail in peacefulness 
On the waveless stream in the mild caress 
Of heaven, a slumbering — this grand hymn 
(Like their images in the watery floor) 
Echoing their souls in their silentness, 
And pouring over them a shower 

Of everlasting power, 
Like liquid light from a golden ewer. 

When the sound of the wires ,v 

Of those marvellous lyres 
Had the strife of those ghosts allayed, 
Their shadows remained in the world of shade* 

Their flesh in the earth 

That gave it birth ;— 



wr. 




/ 



29 



Then in what were their souls arrayed ? 
The new-born child hath lapsed quite 
From ante-natal life ; a night 
Of utter change doth interpose : 
And when the grave on the dead doth close., 
And the spirit hears the gods below 

Singing as they go, 
Utterly changeth it also ? 
For the great Spirit changeth none ; 
But Death, the formless god, alone 
Ministers around his throne. 



THE PROGRESS OF MIND? 

AN ODE. 



It is scarcely necessary to mention, that the follow- 
ing poem was published some years ago ; as it is most 
probable few who see the present book recollect the 
former one : and as it was then in a form very differ- 
ent, and much longer. The opening invocation to 
the powers of nature was suggested by Shelley's 
" Alastor" 

"Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood 1" 

The poem was written by the author as a pre- 
liminary to a larger one on the same subject. It 
is illustrative of a theory which many, doubtless, 
may question ; but as far as that theory is expressed 
in the present ode, little more is necessary to carry 
the reader along with it, than he should admit, as 
Burton has it, that, " the last is commonly best ; I 
say, with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the 
shoulders of a giant may see further than a giant 
himself." 



THE PROGRESS OF MIND 

AN ODE. 



I. 



1. 
Most beautiful of depths, unlimited 

Wonder to the wandering soul ; 
Wide home of worlds, thou azure dread 

In which our earth doth roll. 
And thou great sun, whose light for ever given 
To all, doth make it venerate the heaven, 
Where thou dost live who generatest heat 
And love, throughout all hearts that breathe and beat, 

And thou, moon, wandering patiently 
Through the silver wrack of the nightly sky, 
Mother of holy hope and joy, 
And music, which the gods employ ; 
And thou, the god of worlds afar, 
Lamp -seeming fretted star ; 



36 

And thou earth, freshened by the gorgeous change 
Of breeze and blossom, sunshine and stark boughs, 
Thund er's vast tremor and the lightning's range. 
S miles of pied flowers, and fragrant tears of de w ; 
Of ri gid mountain's rain-bared brows , 
Whose steps the primal generations knew. 
All might of changeless nature, air, 
And earth, and ocean multitudinous ; 
All that the brotherhood do share, 
Or in exchange of harmonies rejoice— 

With human language, thus 
I call upon ye, every form and voice, 
Every thought-giving influence, 
From your mystic regions hence ! 
Man doth command ; the song of good 
Awakens for ever your solitude ! 

2. 
And whose white feet so buoyantly 
Hold o'er the bending flowers their way ? 
The Dryad whose continual smile 
Leaves not the waking buds meanwhile ; 
The nymph who from the grotto'd stream 
Rises like a rainbow's gleam. 
The fawn uncouthly snores profound, 
His face unto che sky ; 



37 

His amphora of spicy wine, 

And plaited basket by him lie, 

Filled with forest nut and pine ; 

Awakes he as they pass, along 

Speeds he to join their dance and song. 

3. 
" Unto the human power, whose voice 
Makes sister Echo's heart rejoice 
With laugh and song's quick changes free, 
And sorrow's soft pale melody : 
With melting lyre and startling horn, 
And thoughtful words of spirit born. 
Who shears the dry stems from the vine, 
Round whose supports its tendrils twine, 
And 'neath its shade who seeks repose 
When the holy eve doth close. 
Who drives the noxious worm away 
From spring or stream, from leaf or spray. 
For him we fill the bowl, his home 
Shall be our temple- dome : 
For him we heap the fruits, his board 
Shall be our altar stored. " 

The wisdom-horned Pan 
Heard, as over his capacious brow 
Meander' d sympathetic glow ; 



38 • 

He smiled ; the old god, universal Pais 
Smiled on the demi-god young man, 
As Nature multiform before 
His feet her wealth came forth to pour. 



IL 

1. 
O'er the gold- encrusted sand 
Of a sun-browned land 
The Ganges widens to the sea, 
Islanded by lotus and banian tree ; 
Upon its shore rise towers, 
And domes by pillar' d roofs upborne, 
And paths are through its mountains worn 
By art's concentred powers. 

But from those caverns deep 
'What feezing whispers shrilly creep ! 
The yearning of man diseased, for more 
Than he may find in nature's store. 
Tradition clothes itself in life, 
And in the throes of manhood's strife 
With ignorance, to the forms that stand 
Around, the work of his own hand, 



/3fcT 



39 

Pointing, she cries, " Truth, love, or peace y TTa /^ TwTa 
From humble ad oration grows." (PtAaft&to tfFt 

Oh, well these lyre-like names he knows, 7 a 7 >*,,,/- 

And manhood bows for hoped release ' 

From mastering fear and from his pains repose. 
But fear, not love, from their marble eyes 
Falls on him kneeling* and there he lies. 

2. 

A cypher'd tongue is formed, a scroll 

That thoughts laborious doth unroll 

On the papyrus dried appears — 

Oh, strange ! the wisdom of the sages' years, 

The life-time of the world is there, 

By fable and by prophecy laid bare. 
| Thence speculations dark as is their cause, 
' Shed their sepulchral glimmering on the shrine, 

That by the herd is bowed to as divine, 

While the initiated scoffers pause 
To bid them kneel again, 
That they may tighten still their soul- inearthing chain. 

3. 
And now a luminous train doth pass 
From gardens, porticoes, and gates of brass, 



40 

He who taught to blend benign, 
The juices and the sweets of wine ; 
Who taught the husbandman to hail 
The Twins, the Virgin, and the Scale ; 
Who taught the miner's armed hand 
O'er radiant gold and steel command ; 
And he who taught the pains that creep 
Through life's pulse to be soothed in sleep ; 
And lo, before the obedient gale 
The oar-limbed car doth sail, 
And the joyful song of mariners, 
The hearts of waiting thousands stirs : 

What treasure doth it bear, 
What gold of distant streams, what sweets of distant air. 

What diamond's starrier sheen, 

What emerald's livelier green, 

To enthrone luxury, 

To strengthen or to beautify ? 

4. 
Another pageant more august 
Passes unscathed by the enamel's dust* 
Cinctures of adamant around 
Their Promethean temples bound. 



41 

He who first caught their music from the spheres, 

And echoed it to mortal ears ; 
Who carved from plane-tree boughs the Dorian flute, 
And gave their breath to the lyre and lute. 
They whose tongue's enwreathen speech, 
Mightier than the thunders roll, 
That over heaven's whole breadth doth reach, 
Captive hath led the wide-eyed soul. 
A vastly circled theatre 
By Attic multitudes astir — 
Hark ! as a storm across the sky, 
The shout of fame that cannot die, — 
Triumph ! the poet bows, 
While the votive wreath sinks o'er his brows. 
And now the queen of nations rears 
Many a conquered monument ; 
And, lictor-guarded, there appears 
A senate on high councils bent : 
Before the judges stands with arms outspread, 
And eager port and regal head, — 
While reason's fire his eyes illume — 
The living eloquence of Rome ; 
And through the empire's girdless realms afar 
His voice decrees, for peace or war. 



42 



III. 



1. 

Ages advancing change : from the bare north 
What clang, heart- sickening, rings forth ? 
The jarring of a quiver stored, 
The griding of a whetted sword. 
Red the sea-foam swells and glances, 
Where their galley's beak advances; 
On each heavy-laden head 
Brazen glory hath been shed. 
Gods ! the terror of that sound — 
That struggle for life that ploughs the ground- 
Heaven severs, to its yawning wrack 
Odin hails the spirits back.— 
The wine- press of the chariot-wheel ; 

The wine, how plentiful, how high ! 
The song bursts from them as they reel 

Writhing, the song of agony — 
Passion, mighty to destroy ! 

Is this the hushed dell-haunting strain 
Wherewith Greece rejoiced to toy, 

Gladdening her god-loving vein ? 
The night-bird of the north 

Rattles her stifling wing, 
The Moslem sabre of the south 



43 

Leaps to the murdering. 
Ha, ha ! the seven-hilled city still 
Ever- craving power doth fill — 
Ha, ha ! the triple- crested king ! 

2. 

Where now Phoenician purple's glow ? 

"Where Persia's gold embossed bow ? 

Where is Eg ypt, that old won der ? 

Hath passion conquered intellect — the hand 

Rebelled against the mind's command ? 

Hath the gothic raven's wings 

Darkened wisdom to fledge kings ? 

No ! like an eternal thunder 

O'er our late-built cities driven, 

The voices of the sages still endure, 

Gathering from us new power more pure ; 

And from the plunder of a ravaged world 

Hath liberty arisen, and hurled 

Her right arm to the seventh heaven. 

3. 

Ages advancing change : in the scorner's chair 
The doubter sits, his famed scholastic stole 
Gathering by silver- seeming clasp of lead : 
And as the humblv-mitred head 



44 

In secret luxury doth loll, 
His hand, unbaptised, lays it bare. 

A scaffold rises — weltering gore 
Down the shameless steps doth pour ; 
That scaffold is a king's last bed, 
.That blood from an ermined trunk is shed : 
Demoniac laughter at his fall 
Maddens the Franks' freed capital. 
Flame-crested Liberty hath trampled ruth, 
And barbed her spear with the tiger's tooth. 
The strife now stills, the tide doth rise breast- deep 
Where Custom and her blind mate sleep ; 
And with its far resounding motion 
Onward wears heaven- glassing ocean. 

IV. 

1. 
Say, ye who know, what power doth climb 
The world unheeding the pilgrim Time ? 
What power, unscathed by his passing wing, 
Gathers strength in journeying? 
What power doth lift the shadowing beard 

Of oblivion stark and worn ? 
Whose eye from out the tomb has glared 
With a subtler life ? What power unborn 



Raised fair shrines of fabled truth 

To love, to strength, to destiny ? 

"What power, when these shrines sank dust worn, 

Rose in more strenuous youth, 
And standing on the 'glyphic piles fit /«£* ^<nJ - d^hi.c^^J^^ 



Of worship past, superior smiles, "/e ^t^U t^h -^C^vCPo^ 

Offering to the later man 

"What was of old poured libative to gods, 

And binding on his hair the flowers, 

Which erst were temple-pavement's dowers ? 

What power in loving earth's green sods, 

Lifteth an universal scan, 
Feeling itself a chained deity ? 

2. 

Philosophy ! 
Sun of the mind's unmeasured sky, 
Where tend thy wondrous rayings — where 
The glory lighted thus we may not bear ? 
Oh ! dreamless soul, whose eye's firm light 
Beacons to thoughts and deeds of might, 
Deep yearning for enduring good, 

For soul- sustaining food : 
Thou searchest inward to the grave, 
And upward through the stars that pave 
The bounds of oui mortal sight : 



46 

Thouknow'st the laws necessitous, that roll 
Through nature, guiding to her transient goal : 
But not thus satisfied wilt thou, 

Like an o'er laboure d gian t, bow. 

«» i .... i - — 

Onward, onward is the prize 
For which of old thou didst arise, 

To which thou tendest now. * 

3 

A farewell to my lay ! a vision wakes, 

A vision of the willing heart ; 
Oh, that they yet may prove, my God, 

Prophetic words I now impart ! 
What years, what cycles have gone by 
Of unrecorded history. 
What thoughts then voiceless lived or died 
To everlasting things allied, 
It matters not ; pain hath come down 
Like snow upon an Alp's bald crown. 

Ages have come and gone, 

Ages shall come and go ; 
The pyre still loftier hath grown, 

Still loftier shall grow. 
Seated beneath the evenin g, while the palm 
Breathes through its wavering fingers balm ; 



47 

The red bee lighting on his hand ; the dove* 
Around his roof-tree, warbling love ; 
Nor old, nor boy-like, but of that mid year 
When the dark hair is longest never shorn % 
E'er on the round limbs marks of toil appear, 
And yet the untried doubt of youth outworn ; 

The man of coming days 

My visioning displays. 
Through his unimpassioned soul what flows 
That giveth him an ancient god's repose ? 
Thinks he of roseate loves, of golden gain, 
Of festive odours, or of wars blood-rain ? 
Thinks he of flattery's lull, of truncheon'd power, 
Of wine, or, like a seer, of death's dark hour } 
Thinks he of science, or of star-crown'd art, 
Or of the laborous joyance they impart, 

Or of that sage of old, 
"Knowledge is power," who rightly told ? 
No, he hath felt all and hath pass'd 
Onward to happiness at last. 



LONDON: 

Printed by Joseph Last, 3, Edward- street, Hampstead-road. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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